The Many Tapes of Red Alert
by Reality Obscured
Summary: G1 - Sideswipe bites off more than he can chew when he finds out a little more about Red Alert than he wants to.
1. Chapter I: Candid Camera

--Written By: Reality Obscured--

AN: This sort of came out of a very weird dream.

* * *

Ok. So Sideswipe had a code. A code that he was able to come by while rummaging through Red Alert's stuff, namely a datapad that had been left unattended for more than two astroseconds. In Sideswipe's defense, he HAD been bored and the datapad HADN'T been encrypted. He'd have thought everyone knew by now that particular combination meant disaster. Prowl had sure caught on fast, password encrypting everything from the most important documents to recreational novels as soon as the red twin was in the vicinity, and the 2IC wasn't anywhere near as paranoid as the Security Director!

Apparently smarter, though.

All the same, he had something in his possession that had to mean something...whatever that was...and he wanted to find the metaphorical "key hole" it fit in. All he needed was access to Red's private computer and a little time. There was a good chance of one of those happening but two?  
Primus didn't like him that much.

...or maybe he did.

It wasn't long before the Petunia of Peril found himself the sole mech working the security station for nearly 12 Earth hours, something he figured would never happen. Most of the Ark 'Bots, including Red Alert, was in the medbay under Ratchet and First Aid's care. They'd been hit pretty hard by the Decepticons in the last battle. In fact, Sideswipe himself was sitting here with a pretty decent field patch job he'd done himself. Sunstreaker was sedated but fine, recharging on a medical berth. Through the medbay camera, Sideswipe could see him pretty well. He'd go see Ratchet after his shift was done and get things taken care of proper.

With all the energy of a youngling on too many energon goodies...or Jazz on high-grade...Side's optics shifted from one monitor to the next. Ok. Good. Halls, offices, medbay, the other rooms he didn't care to worry about but scanned over anyway... All was quiet on the home front. His attention changed to the consoles around him. In the corner of one far to the right he spied a jack for a data transfer cable. Grinning, he took his own and plugged it in.

Three...maybe four hours later...

There was at least half an optic kept on the monitors...more or less. Probably more at this point. Considering he had yet to come across an item of interest or anything the mysterious code fit into, they were more for the entertainment value than he would have liked. Things had toned down a bit in the medbay. The red twin could tell from the way Ratchet had started to deploy his "wrench to the head" method of persuasion on the uninjured Aerialbots who were hovering too closely around their offline brothers.  
Venting a sound akin to a human sigh, he checked on the flow of data. Currently he was inside the old camera footage records. There were a few old files from when the Decepticons had attacked the Ark the first time that he'd replayed out of curiosity, but so far-- Wait a slagging minute. There was a section of the archives that was blocked off from the rest of the records. When he tried to access it, it requested authorization. Shrugging, he entered Red Alert's code.

ACCESS GRANTED

It's about time!  
With care to cover his electronic tracks, he brought the files he'd accessed up, selected one at random, and opened it on the camera monitor that was supposed to be overlooking the brig. It wasn't like there was anyone in there right now, anyway.

Prowl and Jazz walked side by side down the corridor that housed the officer living quarters. The visored mech was saying something as he and Prowl stopped outside the 2IC's quarters, but there was no sound to the footage. Prowl gave a short reply before turning to head inside. He hadn't the time to hit the entry code before Jazz had his hands on the tactician's door-wings.

Sideswipe knew from personal experience what this was doing to Prowl, and he was betting Prowl was loving every minute of it. He was, too, considering how humerous it was to watch Prowl stiffen like that. It didn't take a Perceptor to figure otu what those two had in mind.

The fondling of the appendages was tolderated for about three seconds longer before Prowl shifted, turned, and had Jazz pinned against the wall bumper to bumper with him. Passionate kissing soon turned into heavy petting, hands sliding along seams, across headlights, across afts and hips...

Two blue optics found a permanent home on the images of the vidscreen as the owner watched Prowl (Prowl!!) overload Jazz right then and there in the corridor without even so much as a sliver of decency. He didn't know the tactician had it in him! Even after the data feed stopped and the vidscreen went blank, it took Sideswipe a few moments to completely process what he'd just seen. Wow... Prowl was a lot more experienced than a lot of mechs would give him credit for. He had to be, especially with how fast and effortlessly he'd driven Jazz straight into overload!  
Sides uploaded the next file. Red had managed to get ahold of a piece of gold with that work.

The Rec. Room was crowded with mechs, one of Jazz and Blaster's parties in full swing. High-grade was being passed around and there wasn't a single mech there that didn't have at least some of it in his system. The camera was uninterested in the happenings of the party, however, and it zoomed in on an isolated corner in the far left side of the room. It was relatively bare save for a table and a couple of chairs. The chairs were void of occupants but the table held two cubes of bright pink high-grade. The screen changed color as the Ark's heat sensors were utilized, and the heat signatures of two mechs in the corner appeared.

Sides got this one on the first guess. One had to be Mirage and the other Hound. This didn't surprise him. He already knew that the spy and the scout used their "talents" to interface in random, usually occupied rooms of the Ark. Still, unless Red Alert had known exactly when and where they would have been messing around, there was no way that the SD could have noticed them. This was starting to look like blackmail. He activated the next file.

Bluestreak was in the wash racks, squirming here and there as he tried to get his door-wings under the warm chemical spray to clean them. He never even noticed the arrival of two very familiar Lamborghini Countachs until a pair of golden hands "helped" him on those wings of his.

"What the frag?!" That'd only happened four orns ago! Red Alert had been watching them while they were... Now that was just wrong. Oh so very wrong. Not that he and his brother minded being the OCCASIONAL exhibitionists, but RED ALERT had just recorded them and, more disturbingly, had saved the file to a personal record! There was one more file left. Honestly, Sideswipe didn't know if he wanted to see it.

Six hours later...

Red Alert had been released from the medbay under the strict orders to get him a ration of energon and rest. According to him, that could be taken many ways, and since he could relax sufficiently in front fo the camera monitors and had an energon dispensor handy there as well, he only knew of one place he wanted to be. The security room.

Besides, he didn't exactly trust Sideswipe at the camera's helm. What logic circuit Prowl had blown to make that little decision had to have been a major one.  
The red devil himself strode stiffly out of the security room as Red Alert arrived. He started, "Sideswipe! What are you doing out here? Who's watching the"

"Minibots, Red? Fragging minibots?!" Sideswipe half growled, nearly regretting his choice of words at the images it threatened to assault his CPU with. "That's just sick"

Red Alert could have sword the twin was twitching slightly as he moved quickly away without looking back.

-FIN-


	2. Chapter II: Inferno Gone Wild

--Written By: Reality Obscured--

--Chapter II: Inferno Gone Wild!--

AN: I had written a completely different one earlier this morning during a boring period at work. Then two energy drinks and a pot of coffee later, I was buzzing and had to go to the gym for two hours to work it off! I came home tired, sore, and wanting only to sleep. This is the result. All I could think about when I woke up was completely rewriting it to suit the dream I just had! Please forgive me! cringes

* * *

Red Alert was beyond any shadow of any doubt on this. He was positively sure that the two 'bots in the central computer hub were up to something. Jazz was seated at Teletran-1, working intently at the controls while Sideswipe stood at his back. The Lambo was grinning like a madmech possessed, purposefuly blocking the view of the console from the SD's view. It left Red in the dark. None of it was showing on Teletran-1's screen. What set Red's innate paranoia to predictable and almost circuitry aching life was what Sideswipe was grinning at.

At the camera's location. More importantly, at him! Red tried to focus on any one of the other monitors to no advail. He couldn't shake the feeling of those optics on him. He couldn't go to Prowl with this yet. He had to have proof that they were breaking some sort of regulation before Prowl would consider doing anything but ignore him. Right now, he had to watch and -he shuddered- be watched.  
What happened next had Red Alert sitting back rigid in his seat, his optics bright in stunned surprise and mouth agape. Each adn every vidscreen blanked out into darkness before, one by one, reactivating. Something was loading on to them and taken it's good, sweet time in doing so. Red just knew Jazz and that twin had to be doing this. He could've sworn he'd seen Sideswipe wave just before everything had gone black. Only morbit facination at what he was about to see kept him to his seat.

The file came up. Video footage, he realized. He also realized he was looking at a downward angle into the security room. The very same security room he was in! On the video, he, as usual, was in his seat. Looking vaguely bored, actualy. The Red Alert of the present day and time, however, was gripping the armrests of his seat hard enough to create finger-shaped dents in the metal.  
What the slag?! There was a camera in _HERE_?

The signals fired like lightning across his cerebo circuitry. In barely two astroseconds he had jumped from the chair and was backed up against the door, scanners assaulting the room mercilessly for anything either sending or receiving data. The recording had been looking down at him, which meant that the camera or recording device had to be somewhere near the ceiling. While he scanned for the device or devices, his CPU continued the search for the memory files from that recorded night. The information made itself known automatically. It was only when all the information was laid out before him that he recalled exactly what ELSE had happened that orn. In fact, it had happened not too long after.

Oh, Primus... The monitors were already showing it. He hoped he was the only one seeing this right now. With the Ark's two resident pranksters at the helm of this- Nope. His processor couldn't generate anything good out of it.

* * *

1792.8 astroseconds later (30 Earth minutes)--

He'd given up trying to find the recording device within the first few minutes. Disrupting the feed to the monitors didn't work, either. The doors to the control room had been locked, all communications were being blocked, and nobody seemed to have cared that he had screamed his vocalizer's wiring raw. For half an Earth hour, Red Alert stayed at the back of the room in a spot he judged to be relatively out of surveillance range. That was if it was even here anymore. How someone could sneak something like that in here, he didn't know, much less install it this well hidden. The recording of him overloading himself had been looped to play over and over. Embarrassment and anger both fought for dominance over his emotional protocols...not that it mattered. There was no way he could get Jazz and Sideswipe in trouble for this one. Not without telling Prowl the details. Especially since some of the videos he did have were of Prowl.

As for those videos, he'd already deleted them. There was no way he was keeping around the evidence after THIS.

The sound of the doors opening had him looking up. The mech at the door practically filled the entire doorway. "...Inferno?"

The larger red and white Transformer half grinned at the way Red had moved to the vidscreens, trying desperately to block them from view with his body. "Well, Red? Have yeh learnt yer lesson?"

The Lamborghini stared -no, gaped- at Inferno for a few astroseconds as everything suddenly clicked into place. Inferno had been the only one other than himself who had been in the control room in orns! "I-Inferno... You did this?!"

The taller mech seemed unabashed. "Ain't nuthin' to it, Red. Here yeh think Ah don't pay attention when yer messin' with yah cameras." He stepped forward, the door closing behind him. "Jazz and Sideswipe. What about them?" Red Alert asked. He already had the feeling Sideswipe was the one who told Inferno about his "habits".

"The prob'bly won' be tellin' anyone." He was assured. What wasn't assuring was when Red noticed how he'd been all but backed right up against the console, the larger form close to almost the point of crowding. "Not if yeh stop."

Blackmail. That's what this was. Pure blackmail. Inferno had been the only avenue of being discovered he hadn't previously covered. He never would have believed the fire truck capable of something this devious. But...was it him, or was Inferno occasionally glancing over to the monitors where the loop was still playing. Were his optics darkening? "I'll stop! Where are the recorders, Inferno? They need to go first. There is absolutely no way I'm staying in here any longer with those THINGS around!" The other leaned in, and Red yelped when he felt a nozzle hand slide up a sensitive seam along the inside of a thigh. "Inferno!"

The grin he was given was unrepentant. "Nah. Ah wanna leave 'em fer a few more breems, don't yeh think? Yeh got plenty of me, Red, but not one of us?"

-FIN-


End file.
